July Jobs

General:

  • Sow wallflower seeds, ready for planting out in the autumn.

  • Pick sweet peas regularly encourage more blooms.

  • Tidy up alchemillas (Lady's Mantle) by cutting off the leaves and spent flowers. Water well afterwards and they will produce a new flush of foliage for the rest of the summer.

  • Remove hollyhock leaves that are showing signs of rust. Don't add them to the compost heap.

  • Pinch out the growing tips of fuschias.

  • Snip off the faded flowering stalks of hostas right to the base, to promote new flowers and improve the quality of the foliage.


Fruit & Vegetables:

  • Water tomato plants early in the morning so that roots don't sit in cooler wet conditions overnight. Liquid feed weekly and provide a gentle through draught during the day for those grown in the greenhouse.

  • Sow seed such as kale and spinach for winter pickings.

  • Pick courgettes so that they don't become marrows.

  • Weed between onions, they dislike competition.

  • Thin out apples to one or two per cluster. Pick ripe raspberries regularly to encourage remaining berries to ripen.


Wildlife:

  • Allow clover to flower in your lawn. They are extremely rich in nectar and attract honeybees, short tongued bumblebees and solitary bees.

  • Regularly check levels of water in ponds and birdbaths and top up when necessary.

  • Join in the Big Butterfly Count, 1st July - 7th August. Visit bigbutterflycount.org.

  • Nooks and crannies are ideal homes for invertebrates. Piles of stones, leaves or sticks are all important habitats in the garden.




© Gardeners World Magazine

Gwennan Rees